


so no one told you life was gonna be this way

by thundersnowstorm



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Natasha Romanov, Biromantic Natasha Romanov, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundersnowstorm/pseuds/thundersnowstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is assigned to Captain Rogers the day after she returns to work from her break.</p><p>Somehow this turns into her aggressively befriending a sad, lonely Steve and collecting a gaggle of friends along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so no one told you life was gonna be this way

**Author's Note:**

> So this ignores a lot of Age of Ultron, like BruceNat, Pietro’s death, Steve completely forgetting Bucky, and Clint’s, well, everything. Basically if at one point this doesn’t line up with canon, it's on purpose because I am a bitter old lady trapped inside the body of a bitter, younger lady.
> 
> Title is from the Friends theme song because I think I'm hilarious
> 
> Shoutout to ninaja for betaing and generally being an awesome person.

Natasha is assigned to Captain Rogers the day after she returns to work from her break.

SHIELD is still trying to get right side up after the utter fiasco that was the battle of New York, but Nick still has enough of his wits about him to know that tossing a guy straight from World War II into the 21st century with nothing more than a smile and a toothbrush might not be the best idea. He’s also perfectly aware that he owes Natasha a small island country in return for the shitstorm she just went through.

Whether or not SHIELD has small islands at its disposal is confidential, but regardless, Natasha at the very least deserves a calm work assignment dedicated to helping a ninety year old deal with the culture shock of waking up in a different century, and maybe a pay raise or two.

It’s not even a work assignment really. She and Rogers had gotten along pretty well in the little time they had spent together, so it’s not like it would be a hardship for her to teach him about the current geopolitical climate and emoticons or whatever. She doesn’t have to hang out with him outside of their lessons, but during the Battle of Manhattan she got the feeling Steve could use someone to talk to.

Two weeks to the day after the Avengers have all gone their separate ways, she shows up unannounced at the door of his SHIELD-appointed apartment one afternoon and knocks. Moments later, Rogers opens the door and raises an eyebrow.

“Come to drag me back to SHIELD, Agent Romanoff?” he asks with a wry smile.

Natasha gives him a quick once-over. At first glance, he looks like the average, six foot-and-change blond superhero wet dream, but the faint red eyes, wrinkled shirt, and tightness in his smile make for a different story.

“Actually, we are going to get something to eat,” she says decisively. “There’s a nice little Spanish restaurant just down the street I think you’d like. You ever had tapas?”

She can tell she took him by surprise. She wonders if his last friendly social interaction was seventy years ago.

“Can’t say I have,” he finally says. “Give me a minute to get changed.”

Natasha bites back any grandfather comment about his attire when he comes out of his apartment. She gets the feeling that trying to bond with Rogers at first is going to be like navigating an emotional minefield.

The walk to the restaurant carries an undercurrent of tension as Natasha attempts to keep a conversation going without making it seem too forced. Rogers looks vaguely uncomfortable, but that’s been his go-to emotion since she’s known him.

The restaurant is a cool relief from the grimy heat of summer. They take their seats in a corner booth and he pretends to be contemplating his menu while Natasha watches him.

“I can order for you if you want,” she offers after a long pause has passed.

Rogers gives her that self-deprecating smile he seems to favor so much. “I’m afraid I really don’t recognize most of what’s on this menu. Seems to be happening quite a lot lately.”

“So the whole point of Spanish tapas is to have a little bit of everything. They’re basically like little appetizers. The plate of jamón ibérico is basically just assorted hams. Nothing too weird. I can order for you if you want. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything too weird. I’ll save the raw fish for next time.”

“That’s probably for the best. Whenever I try to order something I end up getting distracted by the prices. I know inflation happened and all, but it’s still kind of a shock when a meal at a restaurant costs as much as a month’s rent used to.” Steve rubs the back of his neck self-consciously.

A short laugh escapes her mouth. “Yeah, don’t worry, these prices are pretty normal for your average restaurant. Plus, lunch is on me.” He opens his mouth to argue but she shushes him. “Nuh-uh. Think of this as thanks for having my back against the Chitauri.”

“You weren’t too shabby against them either you know.”

“Trust me, my ribs are intimately aware. I could barely laugh without hurting them for a week after the damn thing.”

Rogers laughs. Not the tight, bitter laugh he’s had before, but a real one.

She counts it as her first victory.

…

Natasha’s fooling around on her laptop in an empty SHIELD conference room when Rogers shows up at the door three days later. She perks up and motions at the chair next to her.

“Hey Captain Rogers, come on in,” she drawls.

“Nice to see you, Agent Romanoff,” he says.

“Natasha,” she corrects. “You don’t have to call me Agent Romanoff outside the field.”

“If I’m gonna call you Natasha, then call me Steve.”

“Well then Steve, why don’t you take a seat and let me introduce you to the wonders of social media. I’m gonna blow your mind.”

He pulls a chair out next to her. “I’m not totally blind when it comes to the Internet you know. I learned the basics right after they defrosted me. I do know what Google is.”

“That’s a good starting base, but that’s not enough. Computers, and smart phones, and the Internet have become huge parts of everyone’s life and a passing knowledge won’t get you far unless you really look like you’re ninety. Which, you don’t.”

“I’ve been told I look young for my age.”

She snorts. “I don’t care if you’re technically ninety, you look like a twenty-something and are mentally around that age. How old are you actually? Minus the seventy plus years in the ice I mean?”

“Twenty-seven.”

Natasha doesn’t voice her thoughts, that Steve is criminally young to have experienced everything he has. Instead, she turns to her laptop and opens Google.

“Okay, so I’m gonna start with the most common websites known pretty much universally. Welcome to the bizarre yet surprisingly addicting world of social media, Steve.”

She goes through the basics of programming and computer hardware while explaining Twitter to him, and she outlines hacking through cute YouTube videos of cats. Steve especially likes the one with the kittens on the piano.

“Has SHIELD given you a cell phone yet? I’d imagine so, but you never know with them.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Lemme tell you, one of them would have been very useful to have during the war.”

“Here, I’m gonna input my number into it. That way you can text or call me whenever you need anything.”

That night, while she makes her way through a pile of Chinese food and a Sharknado marathon, she takes a selfie of herself next to the food and the utterly ridiculous DVD cover.

A half an hour later, she receives a picture of Steve next to two entire boxes of pizza. She laughs, and then stops, because that’s making her stomach hurt. Natasha figures she should put the leftover Chinese food in the fridge before she starts turning into Clint.

…

“Clint, why the fuck is your dog eating a slice of pizza?”

Clint steps aside to let Natasha come in. “Not even a hello? Does our long and nuanced friendship mean so little to you? And I want you to know that it is perfectly safe for dogs to eat pizza. Probably.”

She kicks off her sneakers and collapses on the couch. “Yeah, yeah. How’s the other Hawkeye doing?”

Clint flops onto the couch opposite her. “Kate’s coming along pretty good. She’s got a knack for archery. And for stupid stunts that should come with a blanket label of ‘don’t try this at home kids’.”

“I wonder where she got that from.” He throws a pillow to her. She catches it. “How’s the other other Hawkeye doing?”

“Aww, Nat, you do care.” She throws the pillow back at him. It hits him straight in the face. “I’m doing good. I’m having fewer nightmares about the whole damn Loki thing. The stupid Russian mob keeps bothering us, but that’s a considerable step up from actual aliens I guess. Plus, Fury’s been real good about giving me a lot of down time.”

“Nick has a good heart, even if he doesn’t like to show it a lot.”

“How ‘bout you? Heard you’ve been hanging out with Rogers.”

“I’m… okay.” There’s a pause, but he doesn’t press. She moves on. “Helping Steve get used to the modern world is easy work. It’s not even work, really. It’s just helping him learn about what he’s missed and trying to befriend him. He’s really lonely. I – in some ways he reminds me of me after you and Fury recruited me to SHIELD.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Just – lost, confused by everything, untethered. Kinda depressed. Y’know.” She waves her hand vaguely through the air. “It’s weird, I didn’t think I’d get that attached to him, but now I kinda want to be his friend for real, no job attachments or anything.”

“Aww, Nat, you’re making a new friend. Am I not enough for you?” Clint juts his lip out in an exaggerated imitation of a pout.

“Shut up asshole, it’s not like you have any friends besides me and Kate.”

“Eh, we’re both human train wrecks, what’s new?”

“Is it kinda funny that I’m the one trying to adjust Steve to the 21st century when I’m like, the least adjusted human on the planet?”

“Yeah, a little. Hey, it could be worse. It could be Stark doing it.”

They both shudder.

“He’d probably start by introducing Rogers to tentacle porn,” she says, and Clint barks out a short, disturbed laugh.

They’re silent for a minute. Lucky trots over to Natasha and she scratches him behind his ears.

“Hey, could you go get me a beer from the fridge?” says Clint at last.

“Get your own damn self a beer, it’s your apartment.”

He groans, but drags himself to his feet.

“Hey, while you’re at it, could you get me a beer too?” she asks.

He sticks his tongue out at her and signs ‘ _fuck you’_ at her. She signs ‘ _I love you_ ’ back.

…

To Steve:  
Happy birthday Steve! :)

From Steve:  
Thanks Natasha, happy fourth of July to you

Natasha lets her head bang against the wall. Getting Steve to talk and open up is like pulling teeth sometimes. For someone who could probably put “is really good at interrogating terrorists” on her résumé, it is surprisingly hard for her to build a genuine friendship with him without resorting to nasty spy tricks. Not to mention he has not had his phone for long enough for him totally be up to date on modern texting etiquette. Her usual texts involve an average of 8.4 emoticons, arbitrary spelling, and obscure acronyms.

They would get there though. She is nothing if not determined.

To Steve:  
What are you doing for your birthday?

From Steve:  
I figured I would just stay in and get some reading done. I might go to the SHIELD gym and work out some.

Natasha stares at the text for a minute before tossing her phone in her purse. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

By her approximations, it takes her fourteen minutes to get some shoes on, exchange her ratty old t-shirt (cheerfully stained with what she hopes is not blood) for a nicer tank-top, lock her door, and bike her way to Steve’s apartment.

(She will vehemently argue she only dresses and acts like a hipster in order to blend in with the local Brooklynites, not because she enjoys it. At least that’s what she says.)

She locks the bike on the building’s stoop and jogs up to the third floor. Her two quick raps to the door are answered, and Steve appears in all his blond, muscled glory. To be perfectly honest, he doesn’t look much better than she did in her ratty t-shirt, but he doesn’t get an excuse, considering it’s his birthday.

“Natasha, hey.”

“Happy birthday Cap,” she says. “Now, what exactly are you doing hiding out in your apartment on well, your birthday? Shouldn’t you be going out and celebrating? You’re only 28 once.”

He shrugs. “Well everyone I would celebrate it with is kind of dead or in a nursing home, so I just figured I’d spend the day in. I’m not a big fan of fireworks anyway.”

Natasha would think she’d have gotten used to the empathetic pang she feels in her chest whenever Steve tries to act nonchalantly about his past, but it’s still there. “You’re celebrating it with me then. Come on, put some shoes on, we’re going out.”

She manages to push him out the door and into the street. Here, with her oversized sunglasses and his plain blue t-shirt, they look like any other pair of twenty-somethings out on the streets of Brooklyn to enjoy the fourth of July celebrations. Despite the heat, which hangs over the city like a heavy, claustrophobic blanket, there are plenty of other people milling about, and red, white and blue feature often in everyone’s outfits.

Natasha spots an ice cream shop squeezed in between a chrome tech store and a Starbucks and stops. “Hey, you like ice cream right?”

“Sure.”

“Of course you do, it’s probably un-American not to. Come on, I’m paying.”

Although she has to take him by the wrist and pull him in, she can see the hints of a smile around his lips.

The inside air conditioning is a heavenly relief for the sticky summer heat, and the bubblegum pop color scheme gives it a certain 50s vibe. They both gravitate to the counter, where more than a dozen flavors of ice cream lay behind the glass.

“Like I said, I’m paying, so get whatever you want,” she says.

“You paid last time I can –”

She cut him off. “Nuh-uh. It’s your birthday, Steve. You deserve some unnaturally-colored ice cream. Seriously, go all out. Let your inner child free. I’m sure ten year-old you would have loved –” She scans the different flavors before settling on the most unnatural-looking one. “– pistachio cheesecake.”

Steve scoffs. “Ten year-old me hated nuts, so no. The raspberry chocolate flavor looks good though.”

The girl behind the counter, a teenager with electric blue hair who can’t be more than sixteen, doesn’t seem to recognize them and gets a large raspberry chocolate cone for Steve and a red velvet cake milkshake for Natasha without looking twice at their faces.

They’re strolling aimlessly through the streets, enjoying their ice cream when Steve says, “Thank you Natasha.”

“Hmm? Oh for the ice cream? It was no problem Steve, really.”

He shakes his head. “Not just for that, just – for dragging me out for my birthday, for keeping me company and all that. I’m sure you had a lot better things you could’ve been doing on Fourth of July weekend than humoring me.”

“I’m Russian, I don’t celebrate Fourth of July. And don’t kid yourself, I’m not doing this just out of a sense of obligation. I genuinely do like you, and I like spending time with you. You’re a good guy Steve.” She takes a long, loud slurp of her milkshake to cover up the awkward silence.

“What about Clint? What’s he doing for the fourth?”

“I think he said something about the Russian mob, I’m not sure. He was pretty vague about it. I should probably head over to his place tomorrow to make sure he’s not dead.”

“The Russian mob?!” Steve sounds alarmed.

“Trust me, they’re peanuts compared to some of the guys Clint and I have taken on in the past.”

“If you say so,” he says. “Um, thanks, by the way. For the things you said.”

They lapse into another awkward silence, neither quite sure how to proceed.

“Hey,” he says suddenly. “Why don’t we go see a movie? I haven’t seen one in approximately seventy years, I’m curious if they’re still any good.”

“I like how you think Rogers. Wait until you see the prices for popcorn at the movies; it’ll give you a hernia.”

…

The next time Natasha appears without warning on his doorstep is an evening two days later.

Steve doesn’t look surprised to see her when he opens the door. “Hello Natasha.”

“Hey Steve. May I come in?”

He steps aside to let her into the apartment. The place has a Spartan-like feel to it, like many of the houses of other soldiers she knows, but unlike theirs, its lack of decoration makes it feel empty. Lonely.

Natasha makes a note to fix that.

“So what have you been doing here all on your lonesome?”

“I have a lot of history to get caught up on, so I’ve mostly just been reading up on it. A lot’s happened in the seventy years I’ve been gone.”

“It’s a fast paced world out there. But it has its charm.”

She wanders over to the coffee table where the thick history tomes are stacked. She picks one up and flips to a random page. “Whatcha been reading about?”

“At the moment, the whole civil rights movement. It’s great to hear at least in some areas progress was made in these past seventy years. Not as much as could have been made, but some at least.”

“You know, you’re really not what people imagine Captain America to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“So, I’m not American, and I can only tell you my own impression of the whole thing, but it seems like whenever politicians want to be seen as patriotic, they’ll use the popular love of Captain America to push their own agendas. People have mostly started to associate the Cap image with one of jingoism and belief in the good ol’ forties values and all that.”

Steve scoffs. “Clearly none of them lived in forties Brooklyn. Somehow I feel they’d change their views if they saw how I grew up.”

Natasha grins. “You should write a book. ‘The Real Steve Rogers: Uncovered’, something like that. Give a couple Congressmembers heart attacks.”

Steve grins, but doesn’t say anything in response. He taps his fingers along the spine of one of the books, looking for the right words.

“Hey Natasha, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Um, so I was reading about the Stonewall riots and the whole subsequent movement, and um, is being queer really legal now? I mean, I read about it, but I just wanted to double check.”

There’s a curious emotion on his face that she can’t quite name, so she forges forward with care. “Yeah, yeah it is. Not everywhere, but definitely in the US. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s completely accepted here, but especially in New York City for example, it’s become much more accepted.” She hesitates. “I know some books on the matter I can recommend if you would like.”

She isn’t surprised when he accepts.

…

Natasha opens her eyes and finds herself staring at her dresser. She studies the Ikea product with an odd intensity, tracing the line of the drawers as she focuses on her breathing.

Inhale for 4 seconds. Exhale for 4 seconds. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

If she closes her eyes again, she can see the red painted across the back of her eyelids. She flexes her fingers but she can’t quite shake that dirty feeling of dried blood caked between them.

(She is one of the twenty-eight ballerinas with the Bolshoi. She is one of the twenty-eight Black Widow agents with the Red Room. She is – no. Inhale. Exhale.)

A shower helps her ground herself in her body, but the images from her nightmares still hover in the periphery of her vision. Her breakfast is a tasteless piece of toast washed down with equally tasteless coffee. Nervous energy prickles through her veins and makes her grip the kitchen table just that much tighter to still her shaking hands.

She needs to do something. Doctor Singh, her SHIELD-appointed therapist, had recommended doing something calm and mindless, but not harmful to herself or to others when she gets like this, teetering along the edge of a panic attack, but Doctor Singh was not here at the moment. She needs to go to the gym. Beating up a punching bag until her knuckles were raw and her shins ached sounded like a good idea at the moment.

The gym is not officially SHIELD’s, and no records would indicate otherwise, but it’s clientele is almost exclusively SHIELD agents, and the establishment excels at not asking questions about the abnormally large number of military or ex-military people who can be seen at all hours of the day there. It takes her less than fifteen minutes to jog there, and less than that to check in and set herself up at a punching bag.

Jab cross. Side kick followed by a back kick. Palm strike. Natasha’s world narrows to the feeling of the scratchy fabric of the bag and the blood rushing to her fists. She thinks the sharp pain she feels in her right hand after a punch might be skin breaking, but it isn’t bothersome enough to make her stop.

“Natasha?”

She swivels around hard to find herself face to face with Steve. He must have just arrived, she thinks, and bites back a curse for having been so absorbed in her workout to not have stayed aware of her surroundings.

“Hey Steve, fancy seeing you here,” she says in between pants.

“Yeah, it’s a good gym to come work out in.”

Her blood is pulsing too hot, and her breath is coming too hard, so she isn’t surprised when she hears herself saying, “Hey, do you want to spar together?”

His eyebrows go up. “I mean, sure, if you want. Are you sure you don’t want some water or something first? You look like you’ve been working out a lot.”

“I’m fine.” She unwraps the boxing tape she has around her knuckles and tosses it to the side. Yeah, her knuckles are bleeding. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Meet me in the ring.”

She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, keeping her energy high when Steve puts his bag away and enters the boxing ring set up in the middle of the gym.

“Standard rules,” he says. “Nothing at the groin, knees or face, and the match is over when someone gets pinned for ten seconds.”

She flashes him a smile. “Sounds good. Ready?”

“Let’s do this.”

She strikes right away, kicking at his midsection. He blocks and counters with a punch at her shoulder. She ducks down and sweeps a leg out at his ankles. He falls, but dodges her follow-up kick by rolling out of the way and leaping back to his feet.

Natasha grins. Her body aches and her blood is pounding hard enough to chase away that nervous energy left over from the nightmare. “Don’t go easy on me Rogers. Where’s that guy I fought aliens with a couple months ago?”

Instead of replying with a quip of his own, he feints a punch and a follow-up one catches her hard in the solar plexus. While she’s gasping to regain her breath, a kick pushes her down onto her back hard. She jumps back to her feet without missing a beat, but she’s finally starting to feel the exhaustion.

“Where’s that woman I fought aliens with?” he shoots back at her, a cocky grin on his lips.

Natasha hasn’t had this much fun in years. Both are equally matched, despite having such different trainings and skill sets. Men of Steve’s size tend to be strong but not very fast, but he’s no slacker in the agility department. She eventually taps out, figuring the black spots she’s seeing are not a good sign, and calls it a tie.

They slump against the wall by the water cooler. Steve’s skin is shiny from sweat and the water he poured over his head earlier. She isn’t as sweaty as he is, but she’s still plenty tired.

“We work pretty well together,” she says. “We should do this more often.”

“What, beat each other up?” He grins.

“Sure. Hey, I imagine SHIELD’s brought you in to work with them. When are you going to start?”

“In a week or so, why?”

“Like I said, we work pretty well together. Fighting like what we did in the battle of New York isn’t SHIELD’s usual modus operandi; it’s usually more covert ops, but with a little adjustment, I think you’d be pretty good at it. I could ask Fury to put us on a team together if you want. It’s up to you though.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. It’d be nice to have a friend on the team.”

His utter sincerity makes her a little embarrassed, so she covers it up with a long drink of water.

“Hey, are you alright?” His question takes her by surprise.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to say anything if you’re not comfortable with it, but you just seemed kind of worked up over something earlier.”

Natasha is hesitant to outright lie to him, so she’s quiet for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

“I had a nightmare,” she says at last, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t – agents rarely have simple pasts, and me more than most, but yeah, the nightmare shook me up. Sparring helped though, so thanks.”

“I’m glad,” he says, and they leave it at that.

…

Fury puts them together with the STRIKE team and they move down to DC to be near the Triskelion headquarters. They do some good missions together, until it all falls apart, and Steve and Natasha are left picking up the pieces.

Natasha had joined SHIELD to try to atone for the many atrocities she committed under the control of the Red Room. She could’ve disappeared after SHIELD helped her find another way, set herself up in a house in the middle of nowhere and lived an average, uneventful life, but her ledger would’ve stayed dripping red.

So how do you atone for the murders of innocents? You dedicate yourself to helping them instead. And that’s what Natasha had thought she had been doing with SHIELD.

But instead HYDRA turned out to be pulling SHIELD’s strings, just like the Red Room had pulled hers all those years ago. She finds herself thinking back to every mission she had done for SHIELD, and she wonders how many had actually hurt more people than it had helped.

And now the entire world knows her name. The entire world knows what she has done, what actions haunt her dreams and shadow her steps. Even while disguised, she feels the world’s gaze on her back, judging the litany of ghosts that follow her everywhere.

She isn’t quite sure where she stands with Steve now. He’d known about parts of her past beforehand, but not in as much detail as the leaked SHIELD files contained. She doesn’t ask him if he’s read them, and she doesn’t ask him about James Barnes, not after the identity of the Winter Soldier had been revealed. Their pasts are ugly, warped creatures that hang over their shoulders, full of stories that hurt to share.

She calls Clint right after they find Steve and get him to a hospital. She finds an empty closet and tries his number again. He hadn’t picked up the last few times she tried him, but by some string of luck, he picks up this time.

“Clint what the fuck, where the fuck have you been these past fucking days. In case you didn’t notice the world went to hell in a HYDRA-shaped handbasket and you didn’t answer your fucking phone.” She normally doesn’t curse this much, but she figures the events of the past few (fucking) days warrants a few fucks.

“My mission in the Ukraine went sideways, I assume due to the fucking Nazis, and I just got to a safe house in Belarus. I’m catching up on what happened, Nat, your files –”

“Are all over the goddamn Internet, I know. I’m the one who put them there. It was that or let all the fucking HYDRA-sanctioned operations stay under the radar.”

“Fuck.”

She draws in a shaky breath and wipes away a tear she hadn’t noticed during her outburst. “Yeah, fuck sounds about right. How are you? Sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’m alright. Only a couple bullet wounds, and I still have my bow in one piece. Pissed as fuck that SHIELD turned out to be compromised beyond belief, but I’ll manage. What about you?”

“I’m okay.”

“Don’t bullshit me Nat, I can only imagine what this has been like for you.”

“I’m – fuck. I don’t know. SHIELD was supposed to be me doing good, righting the wrongs I did with the Red Room, but now I don’t even know. I hate not knowing.”

“How’s Rogers?” Clint asks.

“Physically? A mess, but he’ll pull through. Emotionally? I don’t even know where to begin.” She hesitates. “There’s a lot of stuff that I can’t tell you over the phone, it may not be secure. Just – get back to New York safe, okay? Someone has to pay Kate for dog-sitting Lucky.”

“I will. Stay safe Nat.”

“Ятебялюблю.”

“I love you too.”

The line cuts off with a click, leaving Natasha alone in the dark, quiet storage closet. She wipes her watery eyes with the back of her hand and straightens her back. She needs coffee.

She puts her hood on to hide her now iconic red hair and blends into the hospital hallway. There’s a line at the ward’s coffee machine, but no one looks at her twice. She gets two cups of the sour-smelling coffee, grabs as many creamers and sugars as she can hold, and heads back to Steve’s room.

Natasha hands Sam a cup and sits down next to him. Steve is still asleep, hooked up to more machines than she can count.

“Any change?” she asks, just to make conversation.

Sam shakes his head.

Natasha likes Sam. He seems like he actually knows how to deal with emotions and be a good person, something in short supply in her line of work. He’s kind and genuine, and after she posted all the SHIELD files online, he made sure to tell her that if she wanted to talk about it, he was available, and if she didn’t, they didn’t have to. Plus he makes some _really_ good pancakes, and he’s good in a firefight.

They sit in silence. It is unlikely Steve will wake up anytime soon, but neither of them want to leave him alone. Sam has a book on his lap, but he hasn’t flipped the page in the last five minutes.

She stares at her hands, and for the first time since everything had gone to hell, allows herself to think.

Nick is alive. She kind of wants to punch him for making her think he was dead for so long, but she’s just glad he’s alright. She doubts she’ll see him too often now that he’s gone underground, doing God knows what, but at least he’s alive.

Yasha is alive. She doesn’t know what to feel about this.

The first time she met the Winter Soldier was in the Red Room. Now that she thinks back to that, she wonders if how much HYDRA and the Red Room collaborated together. He had been sent there to train the best out of the Black Widow trainees. She had been maybe eight at the time. He wasn’t nice necessarily, but he was the closest thing there was to kindness she found there. He taught her how to speak English like an American, and how to kick in such a way as to shatter a man’s kneecaps. He called her Natalia in that soft voice of his, and when their handlers decided they had gotten too close, they took him away.

The next time she saw him, he put a bullet in her abdomen. She lets her fingers trace over the bumpy scar tissue under her shirt. Yasha is alive, and he is James Barnes. Yasha is alive and he is Steve’s friend.

Natasha makes up her mind quickly. She is going to find James Barnes, and she is going to return his mind to him.

She calls in some old contacts and uses up enough favors to receive a yellowing file tucked inside a safety deposit box registered under a fake name. The procedures outlined for the Winter Soldier’s programming make her flinch and wonder if giving the file to Steve is the best idea, but she knows it’s better for him to find out sooner rather than later.

Her subpoena to appear in front of the US Senate is not unexpected, but what does surprise her is her own acceptance. She isn’t one to make nice with politicians who would prefer to see her rot in an offshore prison for the rest of her days, but she has to at least try if she wants to live without checking over her shoulders any more than she already does.

The trial goes as well as she’d expected, but at least her snappy one-liner won a good portion of the Internet over to her side.

She meets Nick, Steve and Sam again at the former’s fake grave. Steve takes the file with a weary acceptance she’s come to expect. She isn’t surprised when he tells her he’s going after his friend. (She thinks back to that conversation about they had so long ago and wonders how much James Barnes really means to him.)

Natasha isn’t lying when she says she’s going to find a new cover, a new self. She feels frayed around the edges, as if sandpaper is scraping away at her skin, and if she doesn’t stop and breathe, the sandpaper will start scraping away at her bones.

She goes to Clint’s apartment first, because she isn’t sure if her own has been compromised or not. It’s empty, so she just crashes on his spare bed and sleeps for sixteen hours. Her sleep, for once, is deep and dreamless.

When she wakes up, her bullet wound is aching, so she takes a couple Advil and changes the dressing. Lucky bothers her until she gets him some more food.

She finds an old pair of her jeans in Clint’s closet and with a (clean) t-shirt of his, she looks practically indistinguishable from anyone else her age in the city. A short black wig hides her hair and some carefully done makeup changes her face enough to prevent anyone from identifying her on first glance.

Now it’s time to get to work.

…

She scours the SHIELD files for hours to try and scrape out any mention of the Winter Soldier. All she finds are some vague mentions of the Asset’s locations, all of which are conveniently the same time and place as various major political assassinations over the years. When she gets as much information as she thinks she can, she switches tactics.

It doesn’t take her long to get the location of Steve, or rather, of Steve’s phone. She should really tell him to ditch it for one without GPS tracking technology.

She scratches Lucky’s head one last time (“I know boy, but I’ve really gotta go, stop looking at me with those eyes”) and after packing up her stuff, heads out.

…

She knocks on the door of room 2B in a shady-looking motel. A moment passes, then Steve opens the door.

“Put the gun behind your back away, it’s just me.” She muscles her way past him into the room. Sam is tensed near the bathroom with a gun of his own, but when he sees her, he relaxes.

“Love what you’ve done with your hair,” Sam says with a grin.

“Don’t joke, I’m pretty sure this wig cost maybe fifteen dollars and it’s itchy as hell,” she quips back and, for good measure, tosses the wig at him.

Steve closes the door. “So how exactly did you find us?”

“You need to ditch your phone, it has a GPS. I don’t know about Sam’s, I didn’t get his number.”

“Why, you want my number?” he asks with a wink.

“Wait, so what are you doing here Nat?” Steve asks. “I thought you were going to find a new cover for yourself.”

She shrugs. “I figured I could do that while helping you two out with your missing persons search.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want –”

“Shut it Rogers, and accept help from a friend. God knows you need all the help you can get. I can figure out a new cover and help the two of you at the same time.”

“A friend?” Steve says, with a look reminiscent of their conversation in the car.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t have many friends outside of Clint, but she thinks she considers Steve a friend now. “A friend.” She takes a deep breath. “And as a friend, there is something I should tell you.” Her nails dig crescents into her palms, but she forges on.

“I did meet the Winter Soldier on a mission in Odessa, but the first time I met him was in the Red Room. One of my trainers there was a man they called Yasha, or the Winter Soldier. I wasn’t high up enough to be in the know, but I think HYDRA worked with the Red Room on multiple occasions. He had no past he could remember, and he was completely under his handlers’ control, but he still had a spark of kindness, or humanity in him. Steve, my point is, I do think he’s recoverable.”

Steve looks at his hands with an indecipherable expression on his face. “He pulled me from the river. When I fell, I thought I was going to drown, but someone pulled me from the river and dragged me to shore. That had to be him. I think – I think he might remember me.”

“Then we just have to find him.”

“Natasha, I’m sorry about what –”

“Don’t, Steve. I know what happened to me in the Red Room was awful. You don’t have to pity me for it.”

“It’s not pity, it’s sympathy for a friend.”

She ducks her head to hide her blush at Steve’s earnestness. What is it about the word friend that makes her feel so awkward? “Um, so the last place the Winter Soldier was spotted was near the Helicarrier crash site in the Potomac. Do you guys have anything else on his possible location?”

Sam takes the opportunity to start talking,, picking up on the obvious need to change the conversation topic to prevent anyone from doing anything emotional and embarrassing.

…

The search takes them to HYDRA bases all over the east coast, then across the ocean to Germany, then south to Libya. Every time, they arrive too late, bodies strewn across the floor and files missing. There is nothing to suggest the Winter Soldier was the one who did it, except there is even less to suggest it was anyone else.

With every base, Steve grows more and more withdrawn. She and Sam try to coax him out of his shell, but having to go face to face with his past in such a visceral manner is taking a clear toll on him. He blames himself, she can tell, and though they try to tell him otherwise, he isn’t listening.

Natasha calls Clint after they find another trashed base in eastern Wakanda. He’s back in the US, and although he offers to come help them, she tells him no, that he needs to keep an eye out on the home front. She’s getting the feeling the Avengers are going to have to get back together sometime soon.

She puts her phone in her pocket and goes to find Steve. Like the overdramatic asshole that he is, he’s sitting on the roof of the motel they’re staying in staring off into the night sky.

“Sam went to go get food,” she says. “You okay with some criminally overpriced greasy hamburgers for dinner?”

He shrugs, which she takes as a yes.

Sighing, she takes a seat next to him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“A penny nowadays really isn’t worth anything.”

“It’s an expression, which you know perfectly well, and you still haven’t answered my question. What’s on your mind?”

“I just miss him. I miss him, I miss Peggy, and I miss the Commandoes, but he’s the only one out of all of them who isn’t dead or in a fucking nursing home, and sometimes I think those options are better than what he got.”

“Steve, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you what happened to him isn’t your fault.”

He lets out a short huff of laughter. “Y’know, Bucky used to tell me I had a bit of a martyr complex.”

“Well color me shocked and surprised,” she says drily.

“I’m bisexual,” he says suddenly.

She blinks twice. Out of all the things she thought he was going to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Thank you for telling me.” She chooses her words with care. “What brought this revelation on?”

“I’ve known for a while, I just didn’t know there was a word for it until I read the books you recommended for me. Thanks for them by the way.”

“Were you and Bucky together?”

“Yeah. Not officially, not like we could’ve been if we lived now, but yeah.”

“And you and Peggy –”

“We were together. She knew about me ‘n Buck though.”

She nods and doesn’t pull on that particular string any further. “I am too, by the way.”

“Hmm?”

“Bi, I mean. Well, kinda. It’s complicated.” She doesn’t offer anymore explanation and Steve doesn’t push for more.

He gives her a small smile. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Oh my god, someone shut us up, we sound like a shitty, indie movie from the ‘90s.”

Steve bumps their shoulders together. “Eh, better a corny movie than a badly written tragedy.”

“Oh no trust me, we’re that too.” They both laugh. “Hey, if everything calms down and we have some down time, you should come to a pride parade with me.”

“Sounds like fun.”

…

The trail starts to trickle off until the three of them are left in a little no-name town in Lithuania with no idea where to go next.

Natasha claims the motel bathroom first to wash up, and as she combs the tangles out of her hair, she overhears Sam and Steve talking in the other room.

“Steve, we’re not gonna find anything else on our own,” says Sam. “We could search every town, every city in the world and we wouldn’t find him. We’ve gotta change tactics.”

“I know,” says Steve with a heavy sigh. “It’s just – we haven’t heard anything about him in over a month. How do we know he’s not…”

“Dead? We don’t, but don’t give up just like that Cap. Your boy’s not the kind to go down without a fight, and we would’ve heard about that kind of fight. He’s still out there. You just gotta keep hope and start doing something besides chasing down useless leads.”

Natasha pulls a clean tank top on and goes into the other room. “He’s right Steve. Look, Clint’s been in New York talking with Stark, and he says Stark’s thinking about getting the Avengers back together to deal with HYDRA. Banner has been working with Stark for the past few years and Thor’s girlfriend is supposedly talking to him about funding her research, so Thor shouldn’t be hard to find. We’re the only ones in the Avengers who have truly gone AWOL.”

“You know I’m not a fan of Stark, right?”

“You didn’t have to spy on him and pretend to flirt with him for two months, so you don’t get to complain about him. Besides, as much of a dick Stark can be, he’s got money and resources we don’t.”

“Yeah, but is he willing to part with them to finance the search for the guy who might’ve killed his parents?” asks Sam. “Just in case anyone wanted to address that elephant in the room.”

She shrugs. “We don’t have to tell him we’re looking for the Winter Soldier. I mean, no one would think twice about Captain America wanting to take down HYDRA, his arch-nemesis.”

“So you’re saying we should work with Stark and the other Avengers to take down the remaining HYDRA bases and while we’re at it, lie to them about our true motivations?”

“I know Captain ‘Truth, Honesty and the American Way’ isn’t a big fan of lying, but –”

“Screw Captain America, Steve Rogers is perfectly fine with it if it helps us find Bucky,” finishes Steve.

Natasha doesn’t think lying would help improve the already-antagonistic relationship between Stark and Steve, but if anyone is an expert at bending the truth a little to fit their needs, it’s her.

...

All the Avengers are involved in the strike on Strucker’s base. Natasha is busy taking down a squadron of HYDRA soldiers when she notices Steve’s comm has gone silent.

She doesn’t say anything when Stark finds Baron Strucker’s body lying dead in the lab, but the look she exchanges with Steve later says they’re going to talk about it later.

…

“Rogers, you’re acting more reckless than usual and you need to calm the fuck down. Killing Strucker was a stupid move, you know that.”

“He was involved in Bucky’s programming, I couldn’t – fuck.”

“Hey, hey, look at me Rogers. It’ll be alright; it’ll all be alright.”

…

Natasha’s feelings towards Stark don’t get much nicer after the whole Ultron fiasco. Countless civilians are dead, Bruce has disappeared again to God knows where, and Thor leaves almost immediately with some unsettling, cryptic news about something called the Infinity Gems. Oh, and Stark and Bruce have somehow created the first bona fide cyborg and artificial intelligence.

What the fuck.

She and Rogers start setting up the new Avengers team and facility (Sam is ecstatic not just about being on the new team, but about getting to fight alongside Colonel _freakin’_ Rhodes), but she doesn’t talk to him outside of work for a while. She feels fragile and unsettled after the flashbacks Wanda caused, and she thinks Steve feels similar. She doesn’t ask what he had seen, but she can easily infer who had featured in it.

Natasha is left in charge of the facility when Steve decides to go back down to the city to pick up some boxes he had left behind in his old apartment that he hadn’t gotten around to picking up. She and Clint play a couple of games of a modified form of capture the flag with the new Avengers to get them all used to working together as a team (her team beats Clint’s by two points and she doesn’t stop rubbing it for a week).

She’s on her way to go teach Wanda and Pietro some hand-to-hand when her phone starts blasting ‘Star Spangled Man with a Plan’.

“What’s up Captain Arctic?”

“I’m disappointed Nat, is that the best you could come up with? The Arctic isn’t even a country.”

“I had to come up with something on short notice, and I think I’ve exhausted all the fossil jokes. But seriously, what’s up?”

The phone’s speaker releases a burst of static as he exhales. “I found him. I found Bucky.”

Natasha is looking for her shoes and keys before Steve has even finished his sentence.

…

She finds them sitting on a park bench in some secluded corner of Central Park. A rapidly healing yellow bruise extends across Steve’s jaw, but he doesn’t seem to be paying it any notice.

The man sitting next to him is another story. His hair frames his weary face in greasy curtains, and the clothes he’s wearing look like they came from the nearest dumpster. The silver hand half-hidden by the ratty hoodie gleams with rust and wear.

She doesn’t make a noise, but still the man turns to face her. His slight shift in position hints that he has a hidden knife primed to strike.

“Hello James Barnes. I’m Natasha Romanoff.”

…

It’s still too dangerous to bring Bucky to the Avengers facility, so Clint agrees to house him in his apartment. Natasha doesn’t see them exchange more than a handful of words, but she gets the feeling they get along pretty well. Sam gets in touch with a therapist who he promises knows discretion and will help.

Yasha, or Bucky, or James, or whatever he’s going by these days, still doesn’t recognize her, so she keeps her distance. She knows visiting him wouldn’t be a good idea for either of them. Steve keeps her updated and his emotions vary from cautious hope on a good day to exhausted heartache.

Natasha listens to him whenever he needs to work through his emotions, rubs his back as he cries, and then paints her knuckles bloody in the gym.

Everyone has their own coping mechanisms.

…

“Bucky, Bucky, calm down, it’s not real, it’s just a flashback, you’re here in New York with me, you’re safe –”

“Back away from him Rogers, he needs breathing room.”

“I can’t – fuck. Okay. I’m okay.”

“Buck?”

“Hey pal, I’m back. Sorry.”

“Want some salve for those scrapes? They look pretty nasty.”

“Wait – Natalia? Natashenka?”

“Hi Yasha.”

…

There are days when Bucky loses control, when it takes both Natasha and Steve to subdue him and bring him back to earth. There are days when he doesn’t move, staring blankly at the wall, and Natasha knows from experience that nightmares are playing like a never ending movie behind his eyelids, nightmares that no one can pull you out of.

But there are also good days, days like this one.

Steve brings an old-fashioned record player to Clint’s apartment and puts on a compilation of the greatest hits from the forties. A smile like molasses, slow and sweet, spreads across Bucky’s face as he starts to recognize the tune.

He holds out a hand for Natasha. “Miss Romanova, will you do me the greatest honor of dancing with me?”

Steve covers up his laugh at Bucky’s terrible English accent with a poor excuse for a cough.

“Why yes, Mr. Barnes, I would be honored.” She grabs his hand and his waist and, to his great shock and delight, leads him around the room in a lively swing dance.

“When on earth did you learn how to swing dance?” he says as she dips him.

She winks. “That’s classified.”

She lets go of a laughing Bucky, grabs Sam by the arm and pulls him onto the dance floor (actually just Clint’s woefully unfurnished apartment).

“Natasha I haven’t danced anything since high school prom that wasn’t grinding in bars, what makes you think I can –”

“Hush and just follow my lead,” she says, twirling him.

“What’s grinding?” wonders Bucky out loud.

“Steve, as a graduate of my ‘Culture in the 21st century’ class (patent pending), can explain it to you. Hey, why don’t you give James a practical demonstration?”

Steve turns a scarlet that rivals that of the Iron Man suit.

Sam tries to dip her and almost drops her, but by the time they’ve gotten over laughing at themselves, they notice Bucky has taken a protesting Steve out onto the floor and is leading him in an odd mix of the waltz and the jitterbug. Natasha and Sam exchange knowing grins.

Clint, sprawled across his couch, scratches Lucky between the ears. “Hey, isn’t anyone going to ask me to dance with them?”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “I’ll dance with your uncoordinated ass after I teach Sam how to swing. In the meantime, dance with Lucky.”

…

“Steve, stop picking fights with the homophobic protesters and enjoy the damn parade.”

“Steve can’t enjoy himself without picking fights, haven’t you noticed?” drawls Bucky. Regardless, he goes over to where Steve’s argument with a woman holding a cliché “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” sign is steadily increasing in volume and drags him away by the wrist.

People are milling about in a dizzying array of colors, each with a more outrageous outfit than the next. Bucky had teased Steve about doing drag again (now _that_ was a story she wanted to hear about) but he’d ended up just painting a blank t-shirt with the Captain America shield in the colors of the bisexual flag. Natasha wonders how long it will take before an enterprising soul makes that t-shirt design available online. She had given Bucky a tank top of hers that said “the gay agenda” in rainbow colors. It is about two sizes too small on him and paired with his metal arm, is surprisingly terrifying.

Sam isn’t wearing anything out of the usual, but someone had painted the trans flag colors on his cheek. Natasha has her “ace from space” t-shirt Clint gave her as a gag gift that she not-so secretly adores.

Clint has on a t-shirt stained with something that looks like pizza sauce along the hem, just like he normally does. No one is surprised.

The energy pouring off the parade is infectious, and it’s impossible not to get caught up in the moment. She grabs Sam and Clint to go get a picture of them next to a drag queen decked out in a rainbow-colored wig and sky-high platforms.

Steve and Bucky are behind them, bickering and elbowing each other like an old married couple. She rolls her eyes at them and yells, “Rogers, Barnes, get your asses up here or we’re abandoning you.”

They stick their tongues out at her with eerily good synchronization. Sam cracks up next to her.

“Hey, Clint, gimme a piggy back ride.”

He pouts, but hoists her up nevertheless. From up here, she can flick rainbow-colored condoms at equally rainbow-colored strangers. There had been a stand way back handing fistfuls of them at random passerby, and she had made sure to take half a backpack-full of them to help hand out.

She comes across a red, white and blue colored one and stifles a snort. Her careful aim has it landing right on Steve’s head. He jumps, but when he sees what she’d thrown, he turns bright red and laughs. Bucky waggles his eyebrows at her and for that, he gets another condom straight between the eyes.

She eventually runs out of condoms to throw at people and rests her chin on Clint’s head. He and Sam have begun passionately arguing over whose bird-themed name is cooler (“Falcon’s just the name of a bird, it’s not even _trying_ to be clever.” “Oh, like Hawkeye is much better. You’re just an eye dude, you’re not even an entire bird.”) while Steve and Bucky rant about everything that’s wrong with the 21st century (“The fucking bananas –” “And everyone in Brooklyn is a goddamn _hipster,_ what the shit is a _hipster_ –” “And don’t even get me started on Congress –” “Okay, let’s be real Steve, when have you not wanted to start a fight with a politician.”).

Natasha lets the sounds of her friends’ voices wash over her with the white noise of the rest of the parade’s blaring music, chanting voices, and dancing feet setting the tempo of her heartbeat. Sweat sticks to her t-shirt and hair, and she feels the beginnings of a sunburn starting along her nose, but she wouldn’t trade this for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Clint is the Token Straight Friend of the group.
> 
> Follow me at thundersnowstorm on tumblr for Marvel blogging, meta, and general bitterness over Age of Ultron.


End file.
